LE WEEK-END

"A Complicated Marriage Saved by Enduring Love"

Summary:

A comedy-drama, LE WEEK-END follows a middle-aged married couple as they set out on a second honeymoon to Paris to rekindle their relationship. Though a little slow toward the end, LE WEEKEND is well directed and acted, with an uplifting ending, but there’s some crude language and a marijuana scene requiring extreme caution.

Review:

LE WEEK-END is a comedy-drama about a middle-aged married couple trying to rekindle their relationship by going to Paris to relive their honeymoon. Despite some boring parts, it’s an insightful, entertaining movie with a nice ending, but there are some elements that require extreme caution.
Director Roger Michell’s (MORNING GLORY and HYDE PARK ON HUDSON) LE WEEK-END follows late middle-aged couple, Nick (Jim Broadbent) and Meg Burrows (Lindsay Duncan) as they set out to revisit the Paris of their honeymoon and hopefully revive their marriage. It’s their 30th wedding anniversary, the children are grown and gone. Aboard the Eurostar train to Paris, university professor Nick, forgetful, bumbling in tweed, irritates his wife by simply breathing. “I could lose you in a minute!” Meg announces passive-aggressively. Their relationship is teetering on the edge of collapse. Yet, mutually irritated though this couple may be, moments of deep mutual love punctuate their marriage. It’s complicated.
In Paris, Nick has booked them at the same hotel as their honeymoon. However, on arrival, what was perfect 30 years ago is now a model of mediocrity – a beige prison. Meg snaps, grabbing her luggage and leaving. She drags Nick to a fancy hotel they can’t really afford, announcing to the concierge, “Whatever it costs!”
Meg and Nick take in the City of Lights. Moments of further exasperation are interrupted by tender moments and moments of mutual laughter.
Nick takes a soda can top and offers it as a ring to Meg, proposing, “Try me again!” They kiss passionate just as an old friend, Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), bumps into them. Morgan, Nick’s former protégé, is an eccentric American, published and successful. He invites them to a party at his home to meet his new twenty-something wife. At the party, a secret about Nick’s job at a second-rate school for “idiots” comes to the fore, and Meg discovers how deeply Nick loves her. Will it be enough to give them a new start?
LE WEEK-END is a story of deep love and commitment, as well as a marriage in desperate need of healing and exorcising its past. A second honeymoon in Paris provides all the fodder for renewed romance while simultaneously releasing 30 years of pent-up frustration and unprocessed emotion. At times very raw, it’s a romantic story of a couple fighting to save a marriage. The ending seems to show that enduring love not only keeps a marriage going but also saves it from being destroyed.
LE WEEK-END is well directed and smartly written, though the unconventional story structure grows slow and a bit boring toward the end. However, the strong performances manage to keep things going and bring the movie to a satisfying conclusion. Extreme caution is advised for some foul language and a scene with marijuana.

Content:

(Pa, Ro, B, C, LL, S, A, DD, MM) Mixed pagan worldview with some Romantic, moral, and Christian, redemptive elements about a marriage in trouble that’s eventually redeemed, mostly by enduring love, including a visit to a church; 20 obscenities, four profanities, and some other crude language; no violence; brief sexual innuendo; no nudity; alcohol use; smoking marijuana at one point; and, stealing and couple sneaks out on their restaurant bill.

In Brief:

LE WEEK-END is a comedy-drama about a middle-aged married couple trying to rekindle their relationship by going to Paris to relive their honeymoon. After reaching Paris, Nick and his wife, Meg, experience moments of exasperation and anger mixed with moments of tenderness and laughter. Unexpectedly, they run into Nick’s former protégé, Morgan, an eccentric, successful American. Morgan invites them to party at his home to meet his new young wife. At the party, Nick and Meg discover some new things about each other, but will it be enough to give them a new start?
LE WEEK-END is a story of love and commitment, as well as a marriage in desperate need of healing and exorcising its past. At times very raw, it’s a romantic story of a couple fighting to save their marriage. LE WEEK-END is well directed and smartly written, though the unconventional story structure grows a bit slow toward the end. However, the performances manage to keep things going and bring the movie to a satisfying conclusion. Extreme caution is advised for LE-WEEK-END, due to foul language and a marijuana scene.